Old Time Radio Programs, Complete Broadcast Day, D Day, June 06 1944


This audio is part of the collection: Old Time Radio
It also belongs to collection: Radio Programs

Date: 1944-06-06
Keywords: Old Time Radio Programs; Complete Broadcast Day; D Day; June 06 1944

Creative Commons license: Public Domain

Notes

Series Is Now Complete. Thank You to Pokermatt for the fills.

Individual Files

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Reviewer: CommanderCraig - - June 7, 2012
Subject: Three cheers for Trout
Bob Trout had urbane authority, but with just the right dash of informal charm. I can imagine that his original listeners felt they were in very good hands. He really shines in the first hour. Thanks so much for posting!

Reviewer: RayDio - - July 25, 2010
Subject: Missing segment
Did anyone ever come up with the 4:48-5:53 segment that is missing, and could replace the duplicated segment?

Reviewer: Graham W - - January 17, 2010
Subject: This D-Day Archive is a Remarkable and Historically Important Collection.
 
To anyone with even the vaguest interest in 20th-Century history these recordings are an amazing archive. One hears in 'real time', moment by moment, the actual breaking news of the June 6 1944 D-Day landings--the beginning of the invasion of Europe by Allied Forces--just as CBS studios on the other side of the Atlantic received it.

From rumor to the first and accurate reports by Nazi wireless broadcasts, to shortwave radio news crossing the Atlantic, to the official Allied announcement of invasion, this cataclysmic and momentous WW-II event unfolds to us hour by hour with a frisson and thrill. Even from hindsight, we experience those extraordinary events with surprise and excitement, as did those CBS reporters who experienced them firsthand over sixty-five years ago.

I was so captivated and spellbound by the sheer immediacy of the reporting in these 65-year old recordings that I listened to nearly all of the archive in one session. Listening again after some months, I still find them intensely moving and poignant. On D-Day listeners would have listened with great anticipation and in fear and dread of not knowing what was happening to their loved ones--their sons, brothers, fathers and husbands; but we listeners of today are continuously aware of the appalling events that were unfolding on the Normandy beaches--of the unmitigated slaughter and mayhem at Omaha and elsewhere. As with those D-Day listeners of 65 years ago, we too listen to these broadcasts with great intensity and emotion: though with the passage of time we listen not in fear and dread, but with sorrow and with gratitude and in remembrance.

I kept recalling the tragic and graphic account in Ambrose's D-Day book (Ch.17-Visitors to Hell) of the terrible events that befell the 116th Regiment at Omaha. It's years since I've read the account but these recordings kept reminding me of them. One in particular remains etched on my mind: a brief and understated but very powerful account by Sgt. Warner Hamlett of F Company, of the slow and terrible death of young Pfc. Gillingham. One's emotions just cry out over his horrific and tragic predicament and of a young life cut short in its prime. Hamlett's refrained matter-of-fact account reminds us there are some aspects of battle so painful and terrible they defy conveyance to those who were not there; they're unspeakable notions best left on the battlefield. It is what Hamlett does not tell us that conveys how truly terrible the D-Day landings were.

Of course, hundreds of similar tragedies spanned the length and breadth of the Normandy beaches but none more so than at Omaha. By day's end, thousands more of Gillingham's buddies had also succumbed to the massacre. There were up to 10,000 D-Day casualties, 116th Regiment alone sustained 797 (KIA: 349, WIA: 422 and MIA: 26). Words just cannot depict such hell.

Moreover, those who were not there will never fully imagine or comprehend it, although perhaps Ernie Pyle came close when on June 17, 1944 he wrote from Normandy 'A Long Thin Line of Personal Anguish' where he describes Omaha Beach the day after D-Day and 'a thin little line, just like a high-water mark, for miles along the beach' which was 'the strewn personal gear, gear that will never be needed again, of those who fought and died…' This sad and tragic account* of D-Day, one of the best ever written, leaves us in no doubt as to the inevitable human tragedy that always accompanies battle.

This archive is a stark reminder of the tragic, terrible and ultimate sacrifice paid by so many of those young soldiers, most of whom were green and untried until D-day (a disgraceful fact in and of itself). They've paid the ultimate price to secure our freedom.

In today's threatening world where governments are continuously eroding our freedoms, where democracy is coming under more strain than ever, often from within, we must never forget their struggle and ultimate sacrifice. We must continue to defend our freedoms along with democracy with all our might, for if we fail, ultimately so will have they. Their sacrifice must never ultimately have been in vain. Even the notion of failure must always remain unthinkable.

This CBS D-Day broadcast, together with its NBC equivalent--also on the Internet Archive, are probably the most important archives of their type that I have yet come across; I'd thoroughly recommend them to everyone, especially teenage school kids and those of an age who might be considering a military career**.
  
  
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* http://journalism.indiana.edu/resources/erniepyle/wartime-columns/a-long-thin-line-of-personal-anguish/
 
** No, this is not a call to pacifism; tragically, sometimes war is the inevitable outcome of events. However, those who will be called upon to fight in war need to be better informed about its aspects, especially on such important issues as the mental and physical effects that soldiers experience after combat. Also, there's a need to counter widespread propaganda that portrays macho and heroic images of war and of things that glorify it. There is nothing quite as terrible in the human experience as war and we need to accept that Hollywood's portrayal of it is little more than a pathetic, fanciful chimera. War can't be learned by analogy as there is no effective analogy of war, both society and prospective soldiers need to be cognizant of this.

As the old truism goes, 'The only training for war is war itself'.
 
 

Reviewer: Thunder Pig - - December 7, 2009
Subject: WW II Audio Collection
This is a good collection.

Anyone know where I might find the huge collection of WWII audio that used to be here?

I had downloaded the entire collection, but that hard drive died on me and I am looking to replace that audio.

Reviewer: ToadSmuggler - - June 20, 2009
Subject: Get 'em while they're hot!
If you're interested in these you had better download them right away. They may well be removed like the entire huge World War II broadcasts collection was earlier today, then you'll be out of luck. Seems there's some greedy rights holder of news broadcasts out there.

Reviewer: marcus.rosentrater - - June 6, 2009
Subject: Harrowing
It's June 6 2009, the 65th anniversary of these recordings. I've been playing them all day in the background. I find myself pricking up my ears at certain points, almost forgetting it's history. It is a harrowing account from that perspective. During certain moments you can imagine what it must have been like to switch on the radio at 6am getting ready for work on a Tuesday morning and this came over the air. I never quite understood how that the great invasion was something the American people knew would happen, without knowing the time and place. I don't know if I've ever felt that feeling, that something big is happening, it's getting closer, impending.

Thanks for posting this.

Reviewer: Ray Dio - - April 17, 2009
Subject: Discrepancy
This and the companion NBC set are fantastic. I copy them to my MP3 player and listen at night when I cannot sleep. But I have just one puzzlement.

I had been listening to the CBS files in sequence, and noticed that Part_003 begins with the comments of the French military analyst Mr. Miller, introduced by the CBS Washington bureau at the end of Part_004.

Part_002 seems to run from about 3:48 to 4:48 AM. It ends abruptly during a report by James Wellard of the Blue (according to CBS records that started at 4:48). From other sources I've estimated that the time period covered by Part_004 is from 5:53 to 6:59 AM. There are references to Richard Hottelet's broadcast of 5:07 AM.

So we seem to be missing a segment from 4:48 to 5:53 AM. That portion would also contain a pool report from Dave Anderson (NBC) and at 5:29 a closed circuit (but ordered broadcast by him) between Paul White and Ed Murrow).

Any ideas?

Reviewer: RacingHistorian - - November 29, 2008
Subject: Deepest Thanks
Studying history "in the moment," when the participants and correspondents were unaware of what would happen next, makes these momentous events come alive.

These recordings are a treasure.

My deepest thanks for making them available.

Reviewer: Mars West - - April 17, 2008
Subject: More Information Please
This is an amazing set, a time machine.

Does anyone have information on the source for this? A segment by segment rundown would be delightful, as well.

Reviewer: Dark Apitude - - April 8, 2008
Subject: Very intresting but low Quality
Very interesting and complete selection but mp3 at 32kbps is a terrible low audio Quality.

Reviewer: cid92 - - November 13, 2007
Subject: Three Stars?
Someone gives this three stars because two of the files take a few months to be found?!? Please. You're lucky we can hear this at all 63 years after it happened. Not only that, you don't even have to pay to hear it cause it's a free flipping download.

Some people can never be pleased......

Oh yeah - this is simply amazing. Download it and enjoy it. Great piece of world history.

Reviewer: Razzilla - - June 3, 2007
Subject: You're also missing part 22
It's enjoyable to hear these broadcasts...when they can be found...but when it takes six months to find one missing mp3 out of this collection...only to find out there's a second one missing makes it notas enjoyable...

Reviewer: Daniel Beller - - April 15, 2007
Subject: A fascinating document
I am listening today, Holocaust Memorial Day overhere in Israel, to this broadcast, hour by hour. It is a frightening experience, even for those of us born a long time after D-Day. Check elsewhere here in IA for the complete collection of WWII newscasts - the URL is http://www.archive.org/details/worldwarIInewsOTRKIBM

for a very complete collection of soundclips for one of humanity's darkest hours.
This collection is of amazing good quality, encoded at 32k 16khz, giving thus the feeling of AM frequency response. Listening to both collections is hard for those of us that lost families in the holocaust, mine isn't even documented properly and will never be, but these recording gave me the oportunity to, at least, know more. I thank the person that made this recording available and thank IA for making this available to the public at large, no words can even describe what these documents mean to those of us, in all countries, that have gone thru some many wars...

Daniel Beller
daniel.beller@gmail.com